Thursday Trending Topics: Marvel NOW! News

In a trend that’s sure to continue over the next week — and in the months to come — a few new tidbits about Marvel NOW! loomed large in the day’s news cycle. With lots of buildup to happen between now and October, and weekly launches thereafter for five months, Marvel NOW! news should be a regular trending topic here for quite awhile, just as New 52 was a year ago.

Tony Isabella has always maintained that the creation of Black Lightning for DC Comics was intended as a publishing partnership, with Isabella receiving a greater creator royalty for the use of the character, with an increased amount for extra-media use. But for that reason, it seems that DC Comics went out of their way not to use the character in other media, to the extent that the character was renamed and redesigned as Black Vulcan for the Superfriends cartoon even if the character and his powers remained unchanged.

Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly (who are still claiming an exclusive on revealing the existence of Marvel NOW, the bastards) is the cover to Uncanny Avengers #1 by John Cassaday, showing the team, at least initially, of Wolverine, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Thor, Rogue and Havok.

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It’s obvious from watching The Amazing Spider-Man that the film doesn’t quite work as a standalone piece at every turn. Indeed, I feel the last act, particularly the closing scenes, offer a lot of dangling threads that could perhaps have been tidied up nicely.

It seems that early designs for The Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man were based upon Chris Cooper. It seems fairly likely, then, that he was attached to the role at some point, or at least on the Want! list.

Very little is known about the film’s plot so far, though we did have a little blurb recently, and there’s almost certainly going to be some footage unveiled at Comic Con next week. I don’t know about you but I’m rooting for a more “classical”, less “seasicky” style than District 9.